New York City businesses and organizations with a NYC address, individuals with a primary residence in NYC, as well as those offering products or services to New Yorkers can register a .nyc domain name. Trademark holders with a NYC address, will be given priority during the application process in order to secure their intellectual property.

I can’t decide if this is truly a good thing especially as it relates to local search. It is unlikely that many cities, let alone smaller towns or regions, will start their own version of this program. Or will they? If this this top level domain program takes off others will likely follow suit. Don’t expect there to be just one applicant for a .CHI or .MIA etc etc like there was in NYC (which was surprising but that’s what happened).

That last subset — companies offering products or services to New Yorkers — could easily open the floodgates to any number of registrants. But the city plans to carry out this process carefully, granting priority to home-grown businesses so they may “secure their intellectual property.” The registration process itself will be handled by traditional domain registrars, and as for pricing, the city is only saying rates will be “competitive with the market prices for other top-level domains.” In other words, you’ll likely be paying a good deal more than your typical GoDaddy URL.

No matter how you look at it this will be interesting to see if it catches on because it could add a whole new meaning to the term ‘hyper local’.